DeRosa Images

The beauty, resilience and evolution of the urban landscape

Having grown up not far from the Gowanus Canal, I feel a bit nostalgic as I walk along and remember episodes from my youth. This shot was taken by the 9th Street Bridge over the canal. The massive superstructure above the Lowes sign is the Smith/9th Street Station of the NYC Subway. It is so tall because the ships at one time passing under it had tall masts. In fact it is the tallest subway station in the whole Subway system. I used to pass by this station every day on the train going to high school in Bay Ridge.

Further east up this street was the old RKO Prospect theater (closed in 1967) that I used to walk to with my friends when we were 10 or 11 years old. The world and the neighborhood seemed safer then. These days I can’t imagine sending my 10 year old son to walk 9 or 10 blocks away without an adult to see that they were safe.